‘He put a knife in my back’ – Florian Thauvin opens up about his feud with Dimitri Payet

A longstanding feud between two French footballers and former teammates is being revisited. Florian Thauvin (31) and Dimitri Payet (37) played together at Olympique de Marseille from 2013 to 2015 before moving to separate English clubs.

Thauvin is opening up about the conflict that he and Payet had during their various times as teammates in an interview for the show Zack en Roue Libre.

The Udinese forward says that when he originally arrived at OM in 2013, he had “a lot of respect for this great player.” He says initially, Payet and Mathieu Valbuena (40) were at odds with each other because, according to Thauvin, the former West Ham attacker wasn’t passing the ball.

Payet was also not passing to Thauvin, according to the 2018 World Cup winner, with tensions eventually boiling over when the man from Orléans says he was wide open on a couple of occasions in on goal but never got the proper service from Payet.

In 2015, Payet would move to West Ham United, with Thauvin joining Newcastle United, but that was not the end of their issues. Both players eventually wound up back in Marseille in 2017 with their differences apparently squashed.

“It was going really well for the first two years,” says Thauvin about the reunion with Payet, which was until the club began struggling to get results. Manager André Villas-Boas summoned the two into a meeting when the results weren’t going their way.

“For me, there is no problem,” said Thauvin, adding that Payet didn’t say anything to him.

“We continued, and sometime later there was a problem at the club with Dimitri” according to Thauvin.

Tensions continued to grow to the point where Thauvin claimed that Payet spoke up in front of everyone to call him out. Thauvin claims that Payet said, “Flo (Thauvin), if you have a problem, tell me because you are playing for yourself, you have to respect the team.”

“He stuck a knife in my back,” Thauvin continues. After that, Thauvin says they weren’t on speaking terms, though he says he was glad to hear that Payet had a problem with him because he was unaware.

In 2021, Thauvin moved to Mexico to play for Tigres alongside former Marseille striker André-Pierre Gignac (38) before moving to Serie A for his current club, Udinese, in late January 2023.

Payet would remain at OM until he and the club mutually agreed to part ways last year, with the Euro 2016 runner-up going to Brazil, where he currently features at Vasco da Gama.

The two saw each other last year during the Monaco Grand Prix, where they reconciled, to an extent. “He came himself to personally shake my hand,” recalls Thauvin, who interpreted that as Payet’s admission of having messed up.

During their time at Marseille, Thauvin and Payet played a big part in leading Les Olympiensto to the 2017-18 Europa League final.

GFFN | Joel Lefevre